Born Again Every Time You Spend The Night
by The Seventh L
Summary: Post-TTSS, bookverse. There are things Smiley doesn't know about Peter Guillam. In which spies have crushes and punches and sleepovers. Guillam/Smiley, one-sided.


People knew George Smiley as the man permanently in the know. He was, after all, the man who saved the Circus and found the offending mole with the kind of quiet skill that would make Control proud. Despite his reputation however, there are things Smiley did not know about his best friend and partner, Peter Guillam. And that was exactly how Peter liked it.

The first: Guillam used to chauffeur him and Haydon around in his private car which he even had fitted with a better heating unit so they wouldn't freeze to death during winter drives. It was one of the few things he bothered to keep up maintenance on (as several of his ex-girlfriends and boyfriends could personally attest to). After Smiley retired, Guillam sold his car and called in a lot of favors with those in the Circus in order to have the money added to Smiley's pension check, in modest increments so the man would not suspect.

Number two: Peter once punched Bill Haydon square in the face, under the guise of a drunken disagreement after hours, in the name of the man who at the time was sleeping soundly in his bed after a warm cup of tea and some stories, unaware that his honor was being so dutifully defended. He never once apologized to Haydon. He never felt like it was warranted. After all, this was the man who slept with Smiley's wife; he did not deserve any warmth.

After Haydon was dead, Peter sat in his office and wondered why Karla chose Ann as a target when it was clear that George would never consider leaving her. If he wanted to break down George, he would have been better off setting Haydon after George himself. And then the idea of seducing Smiley with the typical honey pot methods made Guillam laugh so embarrassingly loud that his secretary wondered if he was losing his mind. It was Smiley, for God's sake. Men who looked like him were not exactly the usual target of any great sexually charged scheme.

The third thing is that Guillam found his old friend's retired physique to be wonderful, in a way only someone who loves another person can. After all, it is no surprise that Smiley's body is soft. It is squishy and huggable and curvy around the waistline from a lifetime of tea snacks and the Circus' tendency for setting up safe houses within walking distance of local restaurants and food stalls. Smiley had in the past done his fair share of physical handiwork in the line of duty, but retirement quickly undid what little such activity had made fit.

Some would say that George Smiley's middle-aged exterior is a clever distraction from the sharpened mind that lies within. Others who know better would say that Smiley happens to be surrounded by a group of friends and confidants who enjoy plying him with treats at any opportunity (especially the women). And one of those was Guillam, head and shoulders above the rest.

At a bar downtown where most people would not dare to tread, Jerry Westerby once confessed to Guillam his thoughts on Smiley's exterior. "His body is a bit tubby for a spy, innit?" he asked, as if he was a prime candidate for the nearest football team. Despite considering Smiley as his mentor and leader, Westerby found it odd that Smiley looked the way he did for a man in his position.

"He's in his late fifties," Guillam said, maybe a little too snippy to be innocent. He also unconsciously rounded down Smiley's age for the older man's ego. "Only Charles Atlas could live that long and not acquire some extra baggage. Nothing wrong with it. It's certainly not keeping Ann away." He took a hard drink of sherry, hoping he did not look too desperate.

Westerby eyed up Peter from behind his whiskey, and Peter felt like the other man was examining his brain, picking it apart for some motive behind defending Smiley at all. "Sure thing, sport. Well, what about Control? The man had twenty years on George and he looked like he only had ten percent body fat."

It was long enough after the man's death that talking about Control wasn't considered unofficially taboo. Still, the absolutely blasé attitude of Westerby rankled Guillam a bit. "Control had the metabolism of a twenty-year-old Olympic runner. Or so I've been told by the office lamplighters."

"Speaking of them, are you still seeing that one girl? What's her name?" The conversation took a sharp turn into territory spies know well—women and their bedroom activities—and once again, Guillam was safe from explaining his tumultuous relationship with one George Smiley.

* * *

It's during the restructuring of the Circus that it happens, for the first and only time. Ann Smiley no longer lives at home. George spends most of his time in his office, but after some coaxing from the others decides to at least spend weekend nights at his home. One night, however, Smiley is actually too exhausted to drive home. Guillam, who volunteered to stay late and go through certain personnel files with him, watches him from his desk try to play it off.

"I'll just sleep here then." Smiley actually said this with a straight face, like it was a good idea. "At least then I'll know the files are secure."

"Please don't take this personally, George, but that is a stupid idea," said Guillam, trying to keep his own level of exhaustion out of his voice. "My flat is closer than your house, I'll just drive you there and take you back in the morning."

Even the cunning George Smiley couldn't muster up an argument to counter Guillam's bit of simple logic, so he ended up bundled up in the shotgun seat of Guillam's rental car. He watched, slightly bemused, as Guillam fumbled around with the car's controls in order to turn the heat on.

"By the way, Peter, whatever happened to your old Citroën?" Smiley asked diplomatically as they drove through the late night fog. His current car actually paled in comparison to his old Citroën, and both of them knew it.

"Couldn't afford to keep her any longer," Guillam lied. He discreetly glanced over to see Smiley sitting in the other seat, looking tired but calm. Considering everything he'd just gone through—

losing several agents, losing Haydon, taking the reigns of a broken group that was more of a time bomb than a team—the fact that George wasn't actively pulling his slowly waning hair out and throwing it out the window was a miracle in itself.

"Oh, that's a pity." Exhaustion crept into Smiley's comment; it came out as a half-sigh. In response, Guillam pushed on the gas pedal a little harder for their benefit.

Compared to Smiley's abode, Guillam's flat was embarrassingly modest. He let Smiley make himself at home in the living room while he retreated to the closet in his bedroom for spare blankets and pillows. He came back to find the living room empty and the sounds of tea being prepared coming from his kitchenette. Peter dropped the bedding onto the sofa and joined George, who'd already put the kettle on and was wrestling two small bags out of a brand new tin of tea.

"Don't mind me." The older man moved around Peter, quickly locating where Guillam kept his mugs. He pulled two out without a second glance, then looked inside each one and quickly swiped them clean with a tea towel. Guillam could not even be bothered to be humbled by the small gesture.

Peter ended up in the living room, being sat on in his own flat by his superior. He thought, this would never happen in the Circus. He thought, he should be the one waiting on Smiley, hand and foot. For a second, his long-earned devotion to the man serving him tea took a hold of him, and he spent a brief moment paralyzed with indecision, holding his mug of tea with unmoving hands.

"Peter?"—and Guillam is snapped back into the present by Smiley's quiet tones. "Sugar?"

"Yes, please." Peter watched Smiley spoon the perfect amount of sugar into his mug without being told how much. He wonders which Circus secretary whispered that particular tidbit of information into Smiley's ear, or if it came naturally from years of drinking tea with Guillam on the job.

They drank tea in relative silence, occasionally punctuated by the sounds of cars passing by outside and a brief blast of radio from one of Guillam's neighbors that was quickly turned down to a dull background roar. He watched Smiley drink his tea and realized his usual owlish blinks were becoming sluggish. The Beggar Man was slowly falling asleep in Guillam's second-hand patchwork armchair, and it was one of the most adorable things Peter Guillam had seen since this rigmarole with Karla began.

"Peter?"

"Yes, sir?" Guillam responded as if he wasn't terribly entertained by the sleepy middle-aged man who looked ready to climb into a comfy pair of pajamas and then into a thick stack of blankets.

"He's not getting away with this." He had to assume George was referring to his personal white whale, Karla. It was hard to tell when George was near mumbling. "The Circus will stop him. And then..."

"And then, sir?" Guillam gently prompted.

A small, fragile smile from Smiley. "We'll all go down to the pub and have ourselves a drink."

"That sounds good." Peter hid an amused look behind his mug of tea, poorly. "I look forward to it."

With that, Guillam stood up and carefully took the mug from Smiley's hands, as the man had fallen fast asleep, his breathing already steady and slow. He held the other man's mug in his hand, empty save for a thumbnail's worth of soggy tea leaves and warm from the absent brew. The moment seemed frozen in time: Peter standing by the sleeping Smiley, hands wrapped around an old cup, eyes lost and looking for a reason to linger, to keep everything from moving forward into an uncertain future in which they may or may not survive.

And then his noisy neighbor's radio sent out a splitting burst of loud rock music, and Peter was sufficiently jarred and managed to putter into the kitchen to make himself useful in his own home.

When he went to move Smiley—because there was no way Peter was leaving George to kill his back sleeping in a chair—Peter managed to get his arms around the whole of George's circumference and hefted him to the couch without any bumps or falls. He set George across the length of the couch cushions like the older man was a stick of dynamite, a nitroglycerine explosion waiting to go off at the subtlest of nudges.

"Mind the glasses," George mumbled, still sleeping. For a second, Peter wasn't sure if he himself was being addressed or if George was talking to some unseen person in his subconscious. Then George's chin dropped fully into the fabric of his coat and he was good and fully out of it.

Peter knew that when morning came he would have to roll out his ratty car with no heater and drive George Smiley back to the polished wood surfaces and soft whispering footsteps of the Circus. They would continue their work, watching the watchers and rooting out the pieces that would eventually fall into shape, into the shape of a path leading straight to Karla. But he would spend that night—or at least a little of it—with the night stars at his back, the moon hanging full in the sky behind the rolling fog, a cup of tea in his hands and his greatest friend sleeping only a handspan away.

* * *

In the morning, Peter awoke in his bed to a powder-light layer of snow sitting on his windowsill and the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air. A check of his clock showed it was seven in the morning and yet his small apartment carried the energy of an active weekday afternoon. He managed to fit in a quick wash-up and wardrobe change before running into his temporary flat mate, who'd apparently spent his morning so far making coffee, cleaning Guillam's main room, organizing his briefcase and starting in on his usual activities.

George now sat at the kitchen table, a stack of papers at one elbow, a cup of something strongly brewed at the other, and some dry looking document currently under scrutiny in his hand. His clothes looked heavily slept in, his gray hair stuck out at the nape of his neck, and his glasses would have benefited from the usual swipe of his tie. It was without a doubt one of the most wonderful sights ever seen in Peter Guillam's brief bizarre life.

"I'd wish you a good morning, but it seems you've started without me," Peter said dryly.

George looked up from the document in his hand and blinked not so much his usual owlish blink but that of an owl who's been disturbed from a nap.

"Good morning, Peter. I trust you slept well."

Peter helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down opposite George. "I did."

The two men spent the morning going over various protocols, discussing the schedule for the rest of the day, and somehow finishing an entire pot of coffee between them. Peter watched George operate through a veil of coffee-scented steam.

Yes, Guillam told himself, this was just fine. Soon, they would be going back to the room where Control once ruled and continue their work from within the Circus. He would take every single moment like this one, hoard them in his chest like gold. The Beggar Man and poor no-nickname Guillam, thick as thieves and twice as cunning - and that was exactly how Peter liked it.


End file.
